When Should You Self-Publish or Use a Publisher?

Kel McDonald has put up a lengthy blog post about publishing costs and sales with actual numbers. She’s created and released out her own black-and-white books and published Misfits of Avalon through Dark Horse. Comparing the two, given how much she can make with a Kickstarter and pushing her own books at conventions, leads to some key points:

This is why Kickstarter has been such a great thing/game changer for indie comics. It’s become much easier to get self-published books funded and in front of people that want them….

Publishers have a further reach than I do as an independent creator. They can get into book stores and libraries with distribution. But they can only do that if they are properly promoting it. So it’s important to ask questions about how the publisher is gonna out reach to those places. Because without that key marketing you are missing out on one of the key benefits of a publisher….

I’m probably only gonna pitch color books to publishers from now on or I’m only gonna be the writer on them.

It’s great to see someone so forthright about figures. This is the kind of information anyone interested in a comic career should be thinking about.